Mistborn: The Hero of Ages (80 page)

Marsh's plan to wait, keeping the rebellious sliver of himself secret until the right moment, then pull out the spike in his back and kill himself seemed increasingly foolish. How could he hope to break free, even for that long?

Stand.

The command came wordlessly, but Marsh reacted instantly. And Ruin was back, controlling his body. With ef fort, Marsh retained some small control of his mind, though only because Ruin seemed distracted. Marsh started dropping coins, Pushing of f them, using and reusing them in the same way Vin used horseshoes . Horseshoes which had far more metal would have been better, for they would have let him Push farther with each one. But, he made coins work. He propelled himself through the late-af ternoon sky. The red air was unpleasantly abrasive, so crowded with ash. Marsh watched it, trying to keep himself from seeing beauty in the destruction without alerting Ruin that he wasn't completely dominated.

It was difficult.

After some time af ter night had long since fallen Ruin commanded Marsh to the ground. He descended quickly, robes flapping, and landed atop a short hill. The ash came up to his waist, and he w as probably standing on a few feet of packed ash underneath.

In the distance, down the slope, a solitary figure pushed resolutely through the ash. The man wore a pack and led an exhausted horse.

Who is this? Marsh thought, looking closer. The man had the build of a soldier, with a square face and balding head, his j aw bearing several days' worth of beard. Whoever he was, he had an impressive determination. Few people would brave the mists yet this man not only walked through them, but forged his way through ash that was as high as his chest. The man's uniform was stained black, as was his skin. Dark . . . ashen . . .

Beautiful.

Marsh launched himself from the hilltop, hurling through the mist and ash on a Push of steel. The man below must have heard him coming, for he spun, reaching anxiously for the sword at his side. Marsh landed atop the horse's back. The creature cried out, rearing, and Marsh jumped, placing one foot on the beast's face as he f lipped over it and landed in the ash. The soldier had worn a path straight ahead, and Marsh f elt as if he were looking down a tight, black corridor. The man whipped his sword fre e. The horse whinnied nervously, stamping in the ash. Marsh smiled, and pulled an obs idian axe from the sheath by his side. The soldier backed away, trying to clear room in the ash for a fight. Marsh saw the worry in the man's eyes, the dreadful anticipation.

The horse whinnied again. Marsh spun and sheared off its front legs, causing it to scream in pain. Behind, the soldier moved. And surprisingly instead of running, he attacked. The man rammed his sword through Marsh's back. It hit a spike, veering to the side, but still impaled him. Marsh turned, smiling, and tapped healing to keep himself standing.

The man kept moving, reaching up for Marsh's back, obviously intending to try and pull free the back spike. Marsh burned pewter, however, and spun out of the way, ripping away the soldier's weapon. Should have let him grab it . . . the free sliver said, struggling, yet useless. Marsh swung for the man's head, intending to take it off with a single sweep of the axe, but the soldier rolled in the ash, whipping a dagger from his boot and swiping in an attempt to hamstring Marsh. A clever move, which would have left Marsh on the ground, healing power or not. However, Marsh tapped speed. He suddenly moved several times faster than a normal person, and he easily dodged the slice, instead planting a kick in the soldier's chest.

The man grunted as his ribs cracked. He fell in the ash, rolling and coughing, blood on his lips. He came to a stop, covered in ash. Weakly, he reached for his pocket.
Another dagger?
Marsh thought. However, the man pulled out a f olded sheet. Metal ?

Marsh had a sudden and overpowering desire to grab that sheet of metal. The soldier struggled to crumple the thin sheet, to destroy its contents, but Marsh screamed and brought his axe down on the man's arm, shearing it off. Marsh raised the axe again, and this time took off the man's head. He didn't stop, however, the blood fury driving him to slam his axe into the corpse over and over again. In the back of his head, he could feel Ruin exulting in the death yet, he could also sense frustration. Ruin tried to pull him away from the killing, to make him grab that slip of metal, but in the grip of the bloodlust, Marsh couldn't be controlled. Just like koloss .

Couldn 't be controlled. . . . That's

He f roze, Ruin taking control once again. Marsh shook his head, the man's blood rolling down his face, dripping f rom his chin. He turned and glanced at the dying horse, which screamed in the quiet night. Marsh stumbled to his feet, then reached for the disembodied arm, pulling free the sheet of metal the soldier had tried to destroy with his dying strength.

Read it!

The words were distinct in Marsh's mind. Rarely did Ruin bother to address him it just used him like a puppet.

Read it aloud!

Marsh frowned, slowly unfolding the letter, trying to give himself time to think. Why would Ruin need him to read it? Unless . . . Ruin couldn't read? But, that didn't make sense. The creature had been able to change the words in books.

It had to be able to read. Then, was it the metal that stopped Ruin?

He had the flap of metal unf olded. There were indeed words scratched into its inside surface. Marsh tried to resist reading the words. In fact, he longed to grab his axe from where it had fallen dripping blood in the ash, then use it to kill himself. But, he couldn't manage. He didn't even have enough freedom to drop the letter. Ruin pushed and pulled, manipulating Marsh's emotions, eventually getting him so that . . .

Yes. Why should he bother disagreeing? Why argue with his god, his lord, his self? Marsh held the sheet up, flaring his tin to get a better look at its contents in the darkness.

" 'Vin,' " he read. " 'My mind i s clouded. A part of me wonders what is real anymore. Yet, one thing seems to press on me again and again. I must tell you something. I don't know if it will matter, but I must say it nonetheless.

" 'The thing we f ight is real. I have seen it. It tried to destroy me, and it tried to destroy the people of Urteau. It got control of me through a method I wasn't expecting. Metal. A little sliver of metal piercing my body. With that, it was able to twist my thoughts. It couldn't take complete control of me, like you control the koloss, but it did something similar, I think. Perhaps the piece of metal wasn't big enough. I don't know.

" 'Either way, it appeared to me, taking the form of Kelsier. It did the same thing to the king here in Urteau. It is clever. It is subtle. "

'Be careful, Vin. Don't trust anyone pierced by metal ! Even the smallest bit can taint a man.

" ' Spook.' "

Marsh, again completely controlled by Ruin, crumpled the metal up until its scratchings were unreadable. Then, he tossed it into the ash and used it as an anchor to Push himself into the air. Toward Luthadel.

He lef t the corpses of horse, man, and message to lie dead in the ash, slowly being buried. Like forgotten tools .

. 165 201

Quellion actuall y placed his spike himsel f, as I understand it. The man was never entirely stable. His
f ervor for following Kelsier and killing the nobility was enhanced by Ruin, but Quellion had already
had the impulses. His passionate paranoia bordered on insanity at times, and Ruin was able to prod
him into placing that crucial spike.

Quellion's spike was bronze, and he made it f rom one of the f irst A llomancers he captured. That
spike made him a Seeker, which was one of the wa ys he was able to f ind and blackmail so many A
llomancers during his time as king of Urteau.

The point, however, is that people with unstable personalities were more susceptible to Ruin's
influence, even i f the y didn't have a spike in them. That, indeed, is likel y how Zane got his s pike.
70

"I STILL DON'T SEE
what good this does," Yomen said, walking beside Elend as they passed Fadrex's gate.

Elend ignored the comment, w aving a greeting to a group of soldiers. He stopped beside another group not his, but Yomen's and inspected their weapons. He gave them a few words of encouragement, then moved on. Yomen watched quietly, walking at Elend's side as an equal, not a captured king.

The two had an uneasy truce, but the f ield of koloss outside was more than enough of a motivation to keep them working together. Elend had the larger army of the two, but not by much and they were growing increasingly outnumbered as more and more koloss arrived.

"We should be working on the sanitation problem," Yomen continued once they were out of the men's earshot. "An army exists on two principles: health and food. Provide those two things, and you will be victorious."

Elend smiled, recognizing the reference. Trentison's
Suppl ying in Scale.
A few years earlier, he would have agreed with Yomen, and the two would probably have spent the afternoon discussing the philosophy of leadership in Yomen's palace. However, Elend had learned things in the last f ew years that he simply hadn't been able to get from his studies.

Unfortunately, that meant he really couldn't explain them to Yomen particularly not in the time they had. So, instead, he nodded down the street. "We can move on to the inf irmary now, if you wish, Lord Yomen."

Yomen nodded, and the two turned toward another section of the city. The obligator had a nononsense approach to just about everything. Problems should be dealt with quickly and directly. He had a good mind, despite his fondness for making snap judgments.

As they walked, Elend was careful to keep an eye out for soldiers on duty or of f in the streets. He nodded to their salutes, met their eyes. Many were working to repair the damages caused by the increasingly powerful earthquakes. Perhaps it was just in Elend's mind, but it seemed that the soldiers walked a little taller after he passed.

Yomen frowned slightly as he watched Elend do this. The obligator still wore the robes of his station, despite the little bead of atium at his brow that he used to mark his kingship. The tattoos on the man's forehead almost seemed to curl toward the bead, as if they had been designed with it in mind.

"You don't know much about le ading soldiers, do you, Yomen? " Elend asked. The obligator raised an eyebrow. "I know more than you ever will about tactics, supply lines, and the running of armies between distinct points." "Oh?" Elend said lightly. "So, you've read B ennitson's
Armies in Motion,
have you?" The "distinct points" line was a dead giveaway. Yomen's frown deepened.

"One thing that we scholars tend to forget about, Yomen, is the impact
emotion
can have on a battle. It isn't just about food, shoes, and clean water, necessary as those are. It's about hope, courage, and the will to live . Soldiers need to know that their leader will be in the fight if not killing enemies, then directing things personally from behind the lines. They can't think of him as an abstract force up on a tower somewhere, watching out a window and pondering the depths of the universe." Yomen f ell silent as they walked through streets that, despite being cleaned of ash, had a forlorn cast to them. Most of the people had retreated to the back portions of the city, where the koloss would go last, if they broke through. They were camping outside, since buildings were unsafe in the quakes.

"You are an . . . interesting man, Elend Venture," Yomen finally said.

"I'm a bastard," Elend said.

Yomen raised an eyebrow.

"In composition, not in temperament or by birth," Elend said with a smile. "I'm an amalgamation of what I've needed to be. Part scholar, part rebel, part nobleman, part Mistborn, and part soldier. Sometimes, I don't even know myself. I had a devil of a time getting all those pieces to work together. And, just when I'm starting to get it figured out, the world up and ends on me . Ah, here we are." Yomen's infirmary was a converted Ministry building which, in Elend's opinion, showed that Yomen was willing to be flexible. His religious buildings weren't so sacred to him that he couldn't acknowledge that they were the best facilities for taking care of the sick and wounded. Inside, they found physicians tending those who had survived the initial clash with the koloss. Yomen bustled of f to speak with the infirmary bureaucrats apparently, he was worried about the number of inf ections that the men had suff ered. Elend w alked over to the section with the most serious cases, and began visiting them, offering encouragement.

It was tough work, looking at the soldiers who had suff ered because of his foolishness. How could he have missed seeing that Ruin could take the koloss back? It made so much sense. And yet, Ruin had played its hand well it had misled Elend, making him think that the Inquisitors were controlling the koloss. Making him feel the koloss could be counted on.

What would have happened,
he thought,
if I'd attacked this city with them as originall y planned?

Ruin would have ransacked Fadrex, slaughtering everyone inside, and
then
turned the koloss on Elend's soldiers. Now the fortifications defended by Elend and Yomen's men had given Ruin enough pause to make it build up its forces before attacking.

I have doomed
this city,
Elend thought, sitting beside the bed of a man who had lost his arm to a koloss blade.

It f rustrated him. He knew he'd made the right decision. And, in truth, he'd rather be inside the city almost certainly doomed than be outside besieging it, and winning. For he knew that the winning side wasn't always the right side.

Still, it came back to his continuing frustration at his inability to protect his people. And, despite Yomen's rule of Fadrex, Elend considered its people to be his people. He'd taken the Lord Ruler's throne, named himself emperor. The entirety of the Final Empire was his to care for. What good was a ruler who couldn't even protect one city, let alone an empire full of them?

A disturbance at the front of the inf irmary room caught his attention. He cast aside his dark thoughts, then bid farewell to the soldier. He rushed to the front of the hospital, where Yomen had already appeared to see what the ruckus was about. A woman stood holding a young boy, who was shaking uncontrollably with the fits . One of the physicians rushed forward, taking the boy. "Mistsickness ? " he asked.